


The Portrait in the Tower

by rotrude



Series: The Portrait in the Tower [1]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Canon Era, Dragonlords, Gen, Post-Season/Series 03, fathers, partial reveal, secret nobility
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-05
Updated: 2015-01-05
Packaged: 2018-03-05 11:01:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3117713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rotrude/pseuds/rotrude
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a portait in the tower in Lyonesse Castle. It depicts Balinor in princely regalia. Arthur's the first person to see it in years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Portrait in the Tower

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alby_mangroves](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alby_mangroves/gifts).



> Written for alby_mangrove's prompt: _Through some fluke, Arthur discovers an ancient tapestry that's been hidden away in some dusty castle cellar. The tapestry illustrates the lineage of the ancient house of Emrys, dragonlords from time immemorial. Arthur discovers Merlin's heritage before Merlin does._ though I made a few changes.

The cavalcade is long and hard. It takes them through high mountain passes, dark forests they can scarcely get their bearings through, and across rivers they have to ford with horses spooked by the fury of the water. 

“Your father chose the best season to order a survey of his castles,” Gwaine says, chin dripping with rain water.

“We ride on,” Arthur says, not addressing Gwaine's remark. “Lyonesse Castle is not far.”

Merlin, who looks like a drowned rat with his hair plastered hard to his skull, doesn't say anything. He just scowls at Arthur as if Arthur has betrayed him in some important and fundamental way.

“I'm stuck with a bunch of old ladies who get discombobulated at a bit of rain,” Arthur says, puffing his cheeks up with the annoyance he feels. 

He looks up at the thunder clouds lacing the sky though and does secretly wish his father had chosen any other time of the year for this mission. 

 

**** 

 

Arthur oughtn't have let himself be influenced by the others' mood. They're saddle sore and wet but otherwise fine. And their destination is close at hand. In fact, the forest opens up before them the moment the road stops climbing. Out of clumps of thick foliage the castle's towers appear, solid, squat and grey, the masonry slick with rain.

The old castellan, white of hair and bent of back, welcomes the cavalcade.

Arthur dismounts, crosses the courtyard and walks to the old man, rights him when he totters out of his bow. “Lord Aelfric, no need to stand on ceremony.”

“Sire, it's a pleasure to have you here at Lyonesse Castle.”

 

****

Once they're settled, the castellan shows them about the keep. He takes them along long draughty corridors, pointing out structural weaknesses in the architecture. He leads them into the granary and shows them their provisions, assuring them that they have enough to last them through the winter though he wouldn't say no to more supplies. And, although he's huffing and puffing, he climbs up to the highest tower. Once there, he shows them the view and says, “We've dutifully guarded your land all through the years, sire.”

 

**** 

 

Merlin, on his knees, stokes the fire. “Aelfric seems like a good man.”

Arthur undoes his boots. He's loath to admit it but his soles hurt and his calluses feel harder and tighter. “He is. He's guarded our property for years and done it well.”

“I think you should relieve him of some of his duties, find him some help,” Merlin says, adjusting logs. “He's an old man and can't do all the work by himself anymore.”

Arthur has already thought of that, but for some reason he doesn't say that to Merlin. Instead he says, “Are you speaking out of some sense of servant solidarity?”

Merlin stands, wipes at the knees of his trousers. “First of all that's got nothing to do with anything. I'd stand up for any overworked person. Secondly I thought he was a nobleman.”

“He is,” Arthur says, laying down on the bed, his feet still on the floor. He doesn't need to look at Merlin to know what faces he's making or how he's reacting. “He's served my father since before I was born. He keeps this castle in his name. And that's how he's a servant too.”

“Well, give him a week off at least,” Merlin says, winking. “Someone should be able to enjoy their holidays since so many others can't.”

“Grumble, grumble.” Arthur smiles at the ceiling. “That's all I'm hearing here.”

A dirty sock plops onto Arthur's face.

 

***** 

 

Aelfric's servants carry a tray in. It's laden with a whole glazed pork, cooked in its juices, a lemon stuck in its gaping jaws. 

Merlin pours him wine, and whispers in his ear. “You don't want to eat all of that.”

“For the hundredth time, Merlin,” Arthur says in hissed tones. “I am not fat.”

Merlin's straightens and bites a quivering lip.

Though Aelfric is old and patently tired, conversation thrives at the dinner table. Aelfric's men discuss weapons practice with Arthur's knights while Aelfric's daughters keep Arthur entertained with talks of music and the hunt. Sometimes, when he seems less winded, Aelfric pitches in. “I shall show you around tomorrow.”

“I thought we took in all there was to see?” Arthur asks. Lyonesse Castle is valuable from a defensive standpoint and a fair stronghold, but it's by no means a big construction and they've already gone over its defences. “That we'd already visited the ramparts, barbican and armoury.”

“I was thinking of the cellars,” says Aelfric. “There are barrels of wine in there you may wish were taken to Camelot.”

“They surely belong to you.”

“I only hold this castle in your name, sire, and everything in it is accordingly yours.”

“Still,” Arthur says, “the crown won't deprive you of your wine stock.”

Aelfric nods in acceptance. “And there's the matter of the paintings and sculptures we've been keeping for you.”

“Painting and sculptures?” Arthur's not aware of any such items having been left in storage at Lyonesse Castle. “This is the first I've heard of it.”

“It's just old things your father sent us when you were quite young,” says Aelfric. “He bade us guard these objects. He said he couldn't bear to look upon them, but they're quite valuable, so he wouldn't get rid of them straight away. He was planning to have them sold later on to some foreign dignitary who wouldn't mind about... their nature. Yet I'm old myself and can't keep track of these things for much longer.”

Since Arthur has no idea what the old castellan is talking about, he settles for saying, “I'll have a look at them tomorrow.”

 

***** 

Arthur shines his light on the works of art collecting dust up in the tower. The flames caress the flanks of statues whose robes fall in waves etched in stone. They highlight the chiaroscuros on paintings hanging from rusty nails. They brighten the shapes of the objects standing on plinths or hiding behind grimy glass cases.

His inspection has scarcely gone on five minutes, when Arthur understands why these objects have been relegated to this remote cranny of a castle tower. In one guise or another they all represent magical subjects. There's a statue of a woman wearing a crown of snakes, a triskelion bracelet wrapped around her arm. Her hand is out, palm wide, fingers splayed. The artist has caught her in the act of casting a spell.

Figurines representing sidhe, elves, and gnomes stand clustered together on shelves coated with a thick carpet of dust. Some of them have been damaged. They're chipped at the side or base. A few are lacking appendages. Others are whole but have been tipped over and are now lying on their flanks or backs. 

Arthur wanders the length of the tower, inspecting each and every one of the paintings: the ones portraying naiads and kelpies, the ones portraying the warlocks of old, Taliesin, Ossian and Llywarch. But it's when he comes to the end of the row that he gasps. 

It can't be. It can't. 

The last picture in the row portrays a young man, black hair flying wildly around his temples, a frown etched deep on his forehead. A dragon of great wingspan is crouching at the man's feet, wide snout down, his neck bent in deference.

Arthur knows what the man in the picture is doing in relation to the dragon, can guess from tales he's heard when he was very young, whispers of lore his father didn't want circulated. The man is taming the dragon. He's, in fact, a dragonlord, like the man Arthur was bid find when the great dragon attacked Camelot.

But what strikes Arthur the most isn't the fact that this picture should be a part of this collection of objects Uther banished from his sight. The theme of the portrait itself condemns it, so that figures. What strikes Arthur are the details, the crown at the man's feet, the coat of arms stitched onto his tunic, the motto emblazoned on the scroll framing the canvas. A piece of parchemnt lies at the central figures' feet. On it are scrawled the names of his forebears. The list goes on and on and on. The dragonlord has been pictured as a nobleman, the head of a household. Arthur recognises the iconography while fully admitting that's not something he knew was true of dragonlords. But clearly they were considered a noble breed before Arthur's father changed the laws.

The man in the portrait is clearly of higher caste. But he's not just that. He's not only a random aristocrat from times long gone. He's someone Arthur can name.

Because the man in the portrait is Balinor. The face may appear younger on canvas; it's certainly free of the lines Arthur saw on the face of the real life man. But it's certainly one and the same person. This picture is a homage to someone Arthur saw die not too long ago. Apparently Balinor, before being banished by his father, had been a member of a great household, a great line. And yet after the falling out with Uther Pendragon he'd been forced to flee and to live in a cave like a pauper.

“We owe you a debt, dragonlord,” Arthur says. “A debt of honour.”

***** 

 

It's later that night that Arthur tells Merlin, “Remember the dragonlord we asked the help of to save Camelot?”

Merlin looks up from fluffing his pillows and there's a stricken look on his face that hadn't been there a second before. “He died to save me. Of course I remember him.”

“There's a portrait of him up in the tower,” Arthur says. “Clothed like a nobleman.”

“He wasn't a nobleman.” Merlin shakes his head. His voice sounds thin, reedy. “He couldn't have been.”

“I think he belonged to one of the great houses that existed before the purge.” There's no other explanation for what Arthur saw. 

“That's absurd.” Merlin frowns hard at the pillowcase.

“I'm rather knowledgeable about the nobility, Merlin. I'd know.”

 

***** 

Merlin is less stealthy than he likes to think he is. He tosses and turns in his bedroll, sighs at more than one reprise. Arthur can hardly sleep with all the noise he's making and can't help but notice when Merlin casts his blankets aside and pads to the door. 

He glides out of the room like a ghost; Arthur follows.

Lest he's discovered, he must do so from a distance, but once they're past the first great corridor and up the first flight of stairs Arthur guesses where Merlin's bound. He falls behind on purpose and only enters the tower when Merlin's been there a few minutes.

He finds Merlin sitting cross legged before the portrait of the dragonlord. He's staring up at it, nose up in the air. His shoulders are rounded in a humped position that looks tense, defensive. It's that stance that gets Arthur to double take, to analyse what's going on here. 

Merlin looks as if he's bracing for pain, expecting it to hit him low in the gut. At first Arthur can't fathom why. Surely, the experience with the dragonlord, while dangerous, couldn't have been so painful. He and Merlin had been attacked many times before and have been many more since. Merlin has never acted as though he's been scarred by these events. And yet he seems to have been by this one. True, they suffered the loss of the dragonlord, but Merlin scarcely knew him. There was hardly time for them to bond. But then again...

Arthur studies the picture, then Merlin. With Balinor rejuvenated thanks to this old piece of canvas the similarities between him and Merlin stand out more. Thick dark hair, same shape forehead, similar cheekbones. Though Merlin's kick out more. It's easy to see now with the two of them juxtaposed. So, so easy.

Arthur gasps, Merlin is... 

How blind Arthur's been throughout. Utterly blind. Thoughts crowd his mind, fragments of truth that don't quite match one with the other, revelations and guessed at secrets. It's staggering. This new perspective dizzies him. Which is why, he reflects, he needs time to investigate, scour the archives in Camelot and get to the bottom of this. Above all, he must think first. He should bide his time so he can react properly, or not at all. He can't afford a mistake now, not with Merlin, not considering who Arthur is, where his loyalties lie. Or should lie.

He closes the door on a half sobbing Merlin and with slow footsteps makes his way back to his room.


End file.
